656 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The T routy Luncheon Hour 
By Ladd Plumley 
T HE birr-r-r of the alarm clock woke me. 
As I stepped forth from the protection of 
the heavy blankets of my bed the keen air 
seemed to have almost the quality of a Novem¬ 
ber dawn. In the next room I aroused my com¬ 
panion and fifteen minutes later we were eating 
bread and milk by a kerosene light in the dining¬ 
room of the boarding-house. We shivered as 
we gulped down our frigid meal and longed 
for a cup of hot coffee. But a trout fisherman 
cannot expect that people will get up to feed 
him at three-thirty o’clock. 
“I wish that I had a fur coat and mittens,” 
remarked my companion in misery as we trudged 
along a wood road, the mystery of a dawn in 
the mountains all about us. 
There was plenty of poesy sifting through the 
motionless ieaves toward the changing east, and 
there were more than a plenty of mosquitoes. 
Goodness, how they bit! 
“I hope that the trout will be as eager for 
our flies as these savages are for our blood,” 
said my companion, slapping his forehead with 
a heavy hand. 
In those days of foolishness and youth we 
used to wade the liquid ice of the upper Never- 
sink with no other protection than heavy woolen 
stockings and army brogans. As I waded into 
the stream the chill that embraced my poor 
shanks almost paralyzed the muscles. The water 
seemed very thin and amazingly cold. 
These discomforts, of which I have omitted 
to mention several, were undergone because we 
had read and had heard that the time to catch 
multitudes of hungry monsters was just before 
and after sunrise. Late in the summer this 
may be true. It is possible that under certain 
conditions that is a very productive, although 
skin-penetrating, hour of the day. In early June, 
however, in the mountains at a considerable alti¬ 
tude we found that mosquitoes bit in an entirely 
inverse ratio to the trout. I did succeed in catch¬ 
ing one great gaunt flabby-sides. But we thought 
that perhaps he was a sporty gent who had not 
seen his bed that night and had risen to the 
fly very much as a Paris rounder swigs at dawn 
a cup of cafe au lait at a street stand. Other 
than the bulging-eyed roue we did absolutely 
nothing. 
To this day when some highbrow suggests 
pre-coffee campaigns against the tribe of the 
spotted we shake our heads and shiver. For 
whatever may be true of distant waters and un¬ 
usual conditions there are many like ourselves 
who believe that in our mountain streams trout 
do not take a fly with much eagerness before 
the sun is fairly high in the heavens. Doubt¬ 
less the reason is that the delicate stream-born 
insects that the trout love cannot withstand the 
frigid chill of the earliest hours of the day. 
Night frosts are not unknown in high moun¬ 
tain regions even in early July, and with us 
June freezing spells are of an ordinary occur¬ 
rence. Natural insect food must be pretty scarce 
when the stream-side ferns are white with frost. 
Trout are probably deep in the pools awaiting 
the sun’s heat to warm the air and bring on a 
“hatch” of insects. 
We all know, however, that although the earli¬ 
est morning hours may be unproductive, even if 
the evening is almost as cold as the dawn, yet 
good sport with the fly is a certainty for the 
hours just preceding and just after the dropping 
of the sun. Again there is a reason. The num¬ 
ber of water-born insects increases to a maxi¬ 
mum at, or a short time after, the sun’s setting. 
In late summer the great “flight” of the angling 
day is sometimes as late as the actual dusk. 
Then the trout become wild with food desire. A 
dozen in the same pool will throw themselves 
into the air almost simultaneously. And if the 
angular has the “right fly” he can fill his creel 
without moving a dozen paces. 
But there is another hour of the day that some 
of us have found to be wonderfully remuner¬ 
ative. Indeed there seem to be days when you 
are then more likely to take an actual giant 
than at any other part of the day whatsoever. 
And even with a glaring late July sun fiercely 
beating down on the shimmering pools, with me 
this has been an almost magical hour for heavy 
fish. For myself I always hasten to a finish 
the after-dinner mid-day rest. Many splendid 
fish have taken my fly, and in turn my creel 
has taken them, between two and three o’clock. 
After half-past three, or thereabouts, frequently 
there is an angling vacuity until near sunset. 
But between the hours mentioned it has some¬ 
times seemed as if all the larger trout had filled 
the fishy lunching clubs and were more than 
ready for anything that tickled their fancy on the 
fly menu card. 
It was a good while ago that the angling gods 
deigned to instruct me on this point. Then, 
I might mention, the first instruction came by 
proxy. For the friend with whom I happened 
to be fishing left me to go below and try a rock 
pool a few rods away. Never before in that 
pool had either of us taken any but smallish 
trout. And not then knowing of the piscatorial 
lunching habits that I here am generously di¬ 
vulging I sat myself in the shade of a hemlock 
and waited with some impatience for the ex¬ 
perimenter to return—we had not yet eaten our 
own lunch. 
At length he pushed toward me through the 
alders, his face wrinkled with the smile of fisher¬ 
man’s success. 
“See her.e!” he exclaimed, throwing back the 
lid of his creel and lugging out a thick, heavy 
fish. “What do you know about that! and that, 
and that, and that!” 
With each that, the trout he disclosed was 
bigger and fatter than the one before. 
At the sight of those fish the wonder is that 
I did not lose my breath with astonishment. If 
anybody had told me that there were such fish 
in the rock pool the fortunate one had visited 
I would never, never have believed it. As to 
taking monsters of that kind with a fly almost 
in the middle of the afternoon! Well, of course, 
at the time I believed it to be one of those ang¬ 
ling anomalies that you cannot expect to ever 
happen again. 
But with the passing of the years it has hap¬ 
pened many times with me, and that hour has 
allurements that always draw me to the stream. 
It might be asked what flies are suitable for 
what can be called early afternoon fishing. As 
to that, I have never been able to decide on 
any different flies from those of the forenoon. 
But with low, clear water of course it is the 
smallest flies that are the most killing. 
The able persuader known as the coachman 
will take trout at all times of the day and under 
most conditions. And, it is especially deadly 
used as an early afternoon fly, judging from my 
own experience of many years. At all times the’ 
novice can hardly do better than to keep a num¬ 
ber io or 12 coachman on his cast. I am re¬ 
ferring to flies suitable in size for mountain 
stream fishing, where the fish do not generally 
run much larger than a pound in weight. And 
it must be remembered that most successful 
anglers use a coachman as a “trail” or “tail” 
fly. For some reason that seems difficult to 
discover the coachman is not as attractive when 
presented as a “dropper.” 
If coachman prove unsuccessful for the early 
afternoon sport, then it is well to make a trial, 
one after another, of the flies that the angler 
has at hand and are said to be suitable for the 
water he is fishing over. Or a careful inspec¬ 
tion of the half-submerged rocks at the borders 
of the stream may determine the character and 
colors of the insects then being born and crawl¬ 
ing from the water. The nearest similitude that 
can be found in the fly book may prove alluring 
to the particular ones. I remember a day when 
a “flight” of insects came on a little after 2:30. 
For all the world the flutterers were the living 
originals of the “Cahill.” In an hour I had filled 
my creel with that fly, and, as was to be ex¬ 
pected, had lost a few of the largest trout that 
had eagerly risen. 
Surely we fly fishermen should pat ourselves 
on our backs. Our sport is one in which we 
can never lose our interest. It cannot grow 
monotonous. There are always discoveries to 
be made and theories to be investigated. And 
those who have never given a trial of the early 
afternoon hours should put on a coachman and 
slip down to the water-side at what many of us 
believe is one of the most interesting hours of 
the fishing day. 
JOHNSTOWN CASTERS CONFIDENT. 
Johnstown, May 15.—Johnstown Camp, No. 76, 
United Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, will be well 
represented at the annual state encampment to 
be held at Pittsburgh in June. More than that, 
this city fully intends to carry off some of the 
honors at the annual meet. Members of the 
camp who will participate in the bait and fly¬ 
casting contest are practicing on The Point every 
day they can find time. Before the state gather¬ 
ing a local contest will be held, thus to better 
fit the participants for the more important events. 
At the state encampment held at Scranton last 
year, Adolph Raab took pretty nearly everything 
in the bait casting line and he is out this year 
to smash the world’s record. Jimmy Hill took 
the prizes for the best all around fly-casting 
and appearances would indicate that he intends 
to repeat the performance. Mr. Raab is chair¬ 
man of the committee having these events in 
charge, while Messrs. Hill and Tantlinger are 
the other members of that committee. 
